SD-WAN solution developer FatPipe Networks says it has completed a cooperative demonstration of seamless failover networking technology with Project Darwin.
The project is a collaboration between Darwin Innovation Group (Darwin) and partners, including Virgin Media O2, Hispasat and the European Space Agency, with the goal of developing connectivity solutions for autonomous vehicles. Darwin is developing technology that lets devices and vehicles switch communications seamlessly between satellite and terrestrial networks. This technology can be used to keep autonomous vehicles connected even in areas with variable coverage.
For the demonstration, Darwin equipped a van and drove it through Cornwall, a region of the UK with challenges for both satellite and terrestrial communications. The demonstration aimed to show how the technology enabled the van to transmit and receive information on the move without interruption, switching between satellite and terrestrial networks as necessary. FatPipe provided the technology that enabled communication between the vehicle and the server through terrestrial and satellite paths.
“As we carried out the test cases, we were pleased to confirm that the impact of switching between satellite and terrestrial cellular networks was unnoticeable from a quality-of-experience point of view. Later, when we analyzed the massive amount of data collected during the two days of testing, we were also elated to verify that, although we were out of coverage between 10% and 20% of the time for each of the networks, the convergent solution increased the overall availability of connectivity to 99% of the time,” said Rodrigo Barreto, lead architect at Darwin.
